Dave Rat Blog Seminars and Rock Show #2

Here we go with the second show.  Thank you to all who came to my seminars in Tampa and Orlando.  Forgot to grab a Tampa pic but here are my Orlando sound friends. So great to hang with you all and hope you found it interesting and informative. Oh, and thank you Kim, I could not do these without you!

And after the show, since I had my motorcycle at the hotel, I took a leisurely torrential downpour ride to the gig in shorts of course.

Then packed it up in it's nice little tour home for safe travel to city three.

New toys! Yes the digital snake to FOH rocks, as do the shorter speaker cables but more importantly check out the sexy new "Script Slider" I got for the console.  It rolls back and forth, allows me to pile things on the console and move them easily and is a center console flying drink deflector all in one!

And just as I was heading to write this post, Tommy LBC informs me I am needed at mix position. 10 mins till support starts and oh my, 8 channels gone dead.  Hmmm, huge issue but worries, as the Midas H3000 has computer bypass switches on each channel, no biggie, will roll with no VCA's tonight on that bank of 8 channels. No they are not labelled and yes, I do need them as I use them all..

What I am more excited about and easily makes up for the dead computer is the ButtKicker drum thumper that Jim and Seth have mounted for me on my FOH mixing chair. Well, I dont really sit during the show but just in case I want to, it will rock me and the rest of FOH friends, one human at a time.

And lastly and far from leastly, say hey to Bones.  My little Chihuahua Whippet pooch.  He has not felt well since I left, pretty sure it is because he has not been eating and he fainted a few days ago.  Don't worry though as he is doing better now but oh, how the unexpected can hurt my heart.

And off to to get show ready.  Next sound seminar is in Raleigh, NC and wow! I am really honored by the interest in the seminars and sound humans wanting to join me with something I so much enjoy doing.

Dave Rat Blog - New Adventures

So the Peppers' show last night went really well, with the tour machine back up and running after 3 months down time we looking at a year or so of 3 weeks on 12 days off. Ominous yet and exciting as well.

So I did my first sound seminar in Tampa and it went well.  I get more nervous speaking to a small group of audio world humans than I do mixing a rock show for 10's of thousands of people.  All good.  Next one is Orlando tomorrow then Raleigh..

Some cool new toys and really happy with the changes we've made.

We now convert the analog out of my Midas H3000 to digital at FOH rather than the conversion happening in the amplifier processor, eliminating over 500 feet of analog return snake while not adding additional A/D conversions.  There are more details in my last blog post on the hardware and such.

Also by flying the amp racks we have reduced the speaker cable lengths from 150 feet to 75 feet or less. While I have not done a comparison between longer and shorter speaker cable yet, the fact that we have a redundant analog return snake lets us compare the sound of converting A/D at FOH versus converting A/D in the amp in real time with barely a glitch.

Here is of racks about to fly out

To test the audibility, I asked Jim to switch back and forth between the two without me knowing which was which.  I was able to call out the difference repeatedly and the was no question that the new setup offers clear and significant audible improvement. It is awesome to have what I believe to be the best sounding large scale system available take a full bump up in audible sound quality. Clearer highs and more dynamic sounding as well.

Though we have not compared long versus short speaker cables yet, the system does seem to have a more solid impact from low end from the flown arrays.

Also the metal grated tops for the SubFan arrays have come in for added rock factor.



I have a more to post but got to run.

Dave Rat Seminar Adventure

Yay, new adventure! Off to Peppers' tour tomorrow and I think have found something to keep me challenged and should be fun.  I've decided I am going to do some sound seminars while I on tour and share real time information as well as speak on a variety of subjects.  If all goes as planned, the seminars will be on show days from 12 to 3pm or so at the crew hotel in a small meeting room. Looking at keeping things fairly small, say 12 people or so and I have basic outlines of 4 seminars listed but the topics are flexible and will spend some time covering just about any subject requested.

If you would be interested in hanging out and getting all sound nerdery, go to

http://www.daverat.com/seminar.htm for more info.


Cool cool, that's about it for now as I need to pack up my bags and get busy getting organized.

Dave Rat